At almost the same, time, the CJS subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee marked up its version of the appropriations bill, which provides a little less than $17.6 billion for NASA and keeps weather satellites in NOAA. In his opening statement, subcommittee chairman Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) provided some additional details missing in the text of the legislation. Commercial crew would get $500 million in the House bill, but NASA would be directed to “winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods.” Both Wolf and ranking member Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), in his separate statement, mentioned restoration of some funding for NASA’s planetary science program, specifically for Mars exploration. “[W]e are going to continue to work in this area as we move toward full Committee markup to make sure we have it correct,” Fattah said of NASA science funding.

29 comments to House and Senate advance their appropriations bills

It seems these legislators know that if they don’t actively oppose commercial crew funding that their days are numbered. I suspect that they are numbered anyway, and after SpaceX succeeds in sending Dragons to the ISS and keeps talking up Martian Dragons it will become less and less viable to support SLS/MPCV.

I still think that they will attempt to make sure SpaceX does not succeed in getting to the ISS by hook or by crook, and if I were SpaceX I would be keeping a careful eye on the launchpad to make sure nothing untoward happens to their rocket before launch to make it fail. But I think SpaceX will still prevail eventually. They don’t call 2012 the year of the Dragon for nothing.

Commercial crew would get $500 million in the House bill, but NASA would be directed to “winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods.”

Choosing the very strategy that Bolden has told ad nauseam will not work, in every single of the numerous hearings he’s been subjected to. Well played.

First your congress designs rockets for NASA, now they want to take over program management. What’s next, will they take over mission operations and send members of Congress to the ISS instead of astronauts?

The combination is “we’ll give you a bit more money”, …, and, …”just as long as as anyone who gets it has to become the same whores for us we’ve always had and wanted, …ASAP.” That’s what, “but NASA would be directed to “winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods”,” means. They want the old low productivity NASA back, because anything that could really deliver cheaper spaceflight will mean that the committees will no longer have the excuse that, “it just costs that much”, to flush so much money into their districts.

In this, they demand once again, that a program, whose real worth is that their friends inside NASA cannot wage turf war so effectively against private companies who want to go into Space, be converted into a program making those groups dependent on themselves. That, of course, makes it not commercial at all, but another feudal dependent of theirs. A market friendly Commercial Crew would be a programed advance to access to Space being controlled by the marketplace, which NASA and its Patrones no longer would seek to exclude, as they did between 1979 and 2004.

All alternatives, to reject this poison pill, will then allow the Texas delegation and their coalition to say “we tried to compromise”, when what they tried was poison. As much as I cannot support Obama, this sort of manipulation by the Trent Lott faction of the Republican party, joined by their Democrat colleagues, is something that disgusts me.

We’ll have a few SpaceX and Orbital cargo flights in the history books, and a new Congress that won’t include the retiring SLS “Queen Bee” Kay Bailey Hutchison. If the Democrats take control of the House, Ralph Hall (R-TX) will be out as chair and he’s been a major impediment to commercial space. Even if the GOP retains the majority, I believe the House rules require him to step down and someone else will be in line, perhaps Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who’s very pro-commercial space.

With successful flights, commercial space will have a lot more media visibility and Congress suddenly will find religion.

The notion that the Dems could retake control of the House in November is a Democrat fantasy. The Republicans are very likely to take the Senate, though, and in 2014, probably have a filibuster-proof majority, when one looks at how many Dems will be defending their seats that year.

Retaking the house is a probability, not a fantasy. The dem are targeting the house. Keeping the Senate on the other hand is a problem and is not likely more dems are up for election this year than repubilicans in the Senate and the margin the Republicans need is small. To take the house the dems need to pick up 25 or so seats(remember all 435 seats for the house are up). Holding the senate is more complicated. It would depend on who is the vice president(he counts towards the majority) and who any independant senators will work with.

Not a lot to discuss in either bill and party affiliation has little baring.

The “commercial” crowd is gaining ground as they now go after DoD contracts thanks to Mr. Posey et al. I’d like to see SpaceX get private funding for the Merlin 2 engine and put the SLS out of business as too expensive and too late.

Based on what? Their stewardship of the economy? The nation’s finances? The strength of NASA? Their staunch morals? They are going to be slaughtered. NASA’s malaise is a microcosm of the rot that pervades in the country. The only question is if there are enough hard working people left to outnumber the looters. Lord, I hope that there are.

While I’ll let others discuss whether the Dems will win the House, or the Reps retain the House, I’ll answer your question about who would be in line if the Reps do retain the House

Ralph Hall is term limited, and so he can no longer be Committee chair or Ranking member. Next in line is Lamar Smith, although he is also next in line of Homeland Security (which is a higher profile gig), and then after that is Rohrabacher.

“The “commercial” crowd is gaining ground as they now go after DoD contracts thanks to Mr. Posey et al. I’d like to see SpaceX get private funding for the Merlin 2 engine and put the SLS out of business as too expensive and too late.”

Posey’s bill does nothing. Both ULA and Space X already lease from the DOD the land that they use for launch facilities. Also there was no law barring Space X from getting DOD contracts(like Orbital and ULA). Space X just needs to demonstrate enough launches on the falcon 9 to get the contracts and I think an upcoming Dragon lab flight might have some DOD content.

And, of course, should Space X manage to rendezvous a cargoed Dragon for grappling by the ISS, it will be a close replication of what Russian Progress spacecraft have already been doing- that is, hard docking and servicing orbiting space platforms w/supplies- for over 34 YEARS. Next we’ll experience a presser from Musk announcing plans to purchase a silvered monoplane, install a Tesla electric motor in it and solo the Atlantic in May, 2027.

Ralph Hall is term limited, and so he can no longer be Committee chair or Ranking member. Next in line is Lamar Smith, although he is also next in line of Homeland Security (which is a higher profile gig), and then after that is Rohrabacher.

Thanks. I know you’ve explained it before in another thread, so I appreciate the explanation again.

Rohrabacher (R-CA) or Chaka Fattah (D-PA), either would be a definite improvement from Ralph Hall.

Posey’s bill does nothing. Both ULA and Space X already lease from the DOD the land that they use for launch facilities. Also there was no law barring Space X from getting DOD contracts(like Orbital and ULA). Space X just needs to demonstrate enough launches on the falcon 9 to get the contracts and I think an upcoming Dragon lab flight might have some DOD content.

Not to mention that, like most bills, it won’t pass. Probably won’t even get a hearing.

Under Florida’s redistricting, Posey will have all of Brevard County next year. (Thankfully, Sandy Adams will be someone else’s embarrassment.) I took this as Posey posturing for his re-election campaign. Besides, with the SpaceX launch now nine days away (hopefully), he’s trying to get his snout into the commercial pork.

I’ve written this many times — once commercial space is a success, all the Congresscritters will come running to jump on to the bandwagon.

They also are not claiming they are going to send astronauts to orbit right now. These are imaginary goal posts used to make SpaceX look bad. If SpaceX was claiming it would be orbiting humans in a few months, this would be a fair criticism, but they are making no such claims. The soonest they are claiming is by 2015 and that this date is contingent on funding and NASA regulations.

Meanwhile, NASA can’t orbit anyone and return them safely to Earth with a budget multiples bigger. The optimistic date is that they will send someone in 2021 to repeat Apollo 8. That’s shamefully pathetic for an organization with over 50 years experience in spaceflight.

Of course, when they do put people in LEO and return them, I am sure you will move the goalposts again and say “oh, but they have failed to send anyone Beyond Earth Orbit which NASA achieved in 1968..”

At the risk of sounding anti-americain. NASA should have developed progress technology, years ago. If you want to be able to go deep into space you need the ability to resupply otherwise you are just as limited as Apollo and Skylab. This is a basic must have if you want to expand into space. It seems NASA prefers disposable stunts over slow, steady, economical progress into space.

Anyway there are huge difference between Dragon and Progress.

Progress is limited to docking on the Russian side which limits how large an object it can pass through the tunnel. Dragon berths at a CBM which allows dragon to carry larger objects. Dragon does not take full use of the size of the CBM hatch but both it and Cgynus can handle bulkier items.

Progress only carries 1.8mt of dry cargo, Dragon can carry 6mt and Cygnus 2-2.7mt. Dragon can carry three times more than Progress. Cygnus carries a little more.

While progress also carries propellant, the US side does not uses it(i.e. ISS’s engines are on the Russian side).

Progress is unable to return any cargo. Dragon can return up to 3mt.

Dragon can carry unpressurized cargo. Progress can’t.

Anyway in term of life support, you are often volume constrained not mass constrained. Hence the large volume of both Dragon and Cygnus vs. Progress.

hmm, i guess we have to wait for hall and hutchison to get out of the way of progress. until then ccdev will muddle through and make some progress at least but with rohrabacher in charge in the house things might really come together at last.

“At the risk of sounding anti-americain. NASA should have developed progress technology, years ago”

1000% agree. Such is the nature of a ‘fits and starts’ reactibe space program we have seen in the United States. The DoD and NASA had some grand plans back in the day. Generally speaking, they should have been ‘stamping’ out Gemini-style baseline ‘crew ferries’ for decades. Imagine of they’d contracted for them to ride existing ELVs for flights through Skylab, ASTP and even the early shuttles for a variety of LEO operations simply to to ferry a crew and a supply package.Soyuz and Progress are like a VW beetle- they’re ugly, but they get you there. Americans seem to need a Cadillac to get you there, instead.

Postscript- bear in mind, what Dragon ‘carries’ is essentially irrelevant and only a redundancy to an existing operational system and the ISS is a relic of Cold War planning anyway, and has no relevance today. It’s repreasnets past planning from the Reagan days, a quarter century ago. . Bolden sheepishly referenced it during the Discovery retirement ceremonies as being operational for 11 years—- and made no reference other than ‘reseach’ to what was being conducted and at a cost of $100 billion, it remains a waste of resources to maintain it. The wise move is to work to rule fulfilling minimal contractual obligations and withdraw from LEO operations, leaving it to commercialists and press on w/BEO operations.

“1000% agree. Such is the nature of a ‘fits and starts’ reactibe space program we have seen in the United States. The DoD and NASA had some grand plans back in the day. Generally speaking, they should have been ‘stamping’ out Gemini-style baseline ‘crew ferries’ for decades. Imagine of they’d contracted for them to ride existing ELVs for flights through Skylab, ASTP and even the early shuttles for a variety of LEO operations simply to to ferry a crew and a supply package.Soyuz and Progress are like a VW beetle- they’re ugly, but they get you there. Americans seem to need a Cadillac to get you there, instead.”

Ah, you need more than that. Here is the problem. The Saturn V was a NASA owned rocket with no other users, so Skylab was doomed to be a one or maybe two off as Saturn V production was halted in 1968. Salyut could be launched by a proton rocket. ASTP used Saturn 1B. However the DOD retired the Saturn I in favor of Titan III(it was cheaper). You needed a space station that was lift able by a rocket that would be in production and NASA could not afford to keep the Saturn in production by itself.

Gemini lacked a docking tunnel. You could dock Gemini, but you could not transfer crew from one spacecraft to another. You would need something Apollo based. (Although there was some Gemini plans to put a hatch in the heat shield).

The existing ELV were to be replaced by the shuttle that was the plan of the 70ies. NASA wanted a space station and a shuttle but all they got was the shuttle. The flaw of the shuttle is that is a general purpose does it all craft. It is a jack of all trades but a master of none. There were some plans to adapt Apollo to Titian III for a LEO role but the budgets of the 70ies could not allow it.

There simply was no station for the Shuttle to go to till the 90ies and even then it wasn’t an American station, it was MIR!

I like manned spaceflight, but frankly there are not enough manned flights to justify keeping a manned only system (Saturn V, Saturn 1B, and Shuttle). The Russians and the Chinese are able to make this economy move, but NASA cannot.

Anyway what NASA wanted in the 60ies was something small with a crew of 4 and a very small cargo bay. Something more like Dreamchaser than the Shuttle. The Shuttle, however had to be hyped as being able to replace the ELV and so it had to have some DOD capabilities that drove up the price and made for the current system.

As for BEO spaceflight, IMHO not worth it. I don’t mind a trip to the moon, but the cost of a single Apollo mission in today’s dollar makes the ISS look cheap. The ISS might have cost 100 billion to construct but it is still going on 11 years later and expected to last another 8-16 years. Apollo consumed 100 billion and was over in a flash with only 6 moon landings. The ISS has hosted 30 expeditions to date.

BEO spaceflight will not happen like Apollo. In addition LEO is a great place to test things like long term life support and what happens to the body in zero g. Apollo was about beating the Russians to the moon, no matter the cost. However if you are to do sustained BEO spaceflight the cost must be a concern. I mean you could only stay 3 days on the moon for that huge price!

If you want to get to the moon commercial is the way to go. What commercial does is do the routine cheaper so that NASA can focus on what is not routine.

@pathfinder_1 it is time to think creatively about living on the Moon. A lunar mining village (it must not be called a base) containing 4 people can be feed for 2 months by the Morpheus lander. The half tonne of cargo is launched on an Atlas V.

“The ISS might have cost 100 billion to construct but it is still going on 11 years later and expected to last another 8-16 years.”

Excellent point.

It’s beyond me why some people want to spend $Billions on the biggest disposable rocket in the world, and the most expensive disposable 4-seat capsule.

The only way we’ll expand our presence in space is by building up the amount of assets we have in space – space stations, reusable vehicles of all types, fuel depots, Solar Electric Propulsion tugs, etc. Every dollar we spend on disposable hardware is a dollar that doesn’t go towards our expansion out into space. Let’s get our priorities straight.

The trouble is mine what and why? I think a manned base(4 people is not a vilage) can be done cheaper via commercail but lunar mining falls into the catagory too risky. Too costly to export and questionable market(i.e. He3 has no current use on earth, lox/loh could be cheaper to export from earth and that is if it is even needed(electric propulsion) and in what quanties?). Lunar ice is probably best used for lifesupport then maybe propulsion(and not the other way round) from the lunar surface.

There are many discussions about funding and cutting of Commercial Crew, SLS/Orion, JWST and Planetary Science/ExoMars. But I heard nothing about the technology budget of 699 Mio $, a budget that didn´t existed three years ago.

Is there a common sense between WH, Senate and Congress that this budget is necessary. Where are the big projects which needs 700 Mio $ a year and is that really a priority? Why they don`t use some of that budget for commercial crew projects?